Rakuten Viber: Expands its services to small businesses in Greece

Rakuten Viber announced the expansion of Business Accounts, a suite of free tools for small businesses in Greece, allowing them to enrich their online presence and customer interaction them.

Professional Accounts were launched in Greece last year and are now being upgraded with additional features and new functions. They include integrated messaging, analytics and automation tools that help small businesses grow at a lower cost. At the same time, they allow customers to find businesses faster and enjoy personalized support and communication through the application.

Enhanced messaging & analytics tools in new Business Accounts

Rakuten Viber saw a 65% increase in the number of new Business Accounts opened in Greece and the Philippines since the beginning of 2024. Interest was particularly strong from craftsmen, consultants, as well as businesses in the health, beauty and e-commerce sectors. Based on their feedback, Business Accounts have now beenenriched with enhanced messaging and analytics tools, which streamline communication between businesses and their customers, offering immediate and seamless communication, while enabling businesses to gain actionable insights into their business and audience.

90% of consumers spend more money at businesses that offer personalized experiences

According to surveys, 90% of consumers say they spend more money at businesses that offer personalized experiences (Source), while 88% are more likely to return to businesses with good customer service (Source). The new features of Business Accounts allow small businesses to meet these requirements by supporting all the messaging features, message types and functions that Viber offers:

Creating a business presence and promotion of products and services

  • Public Business Profile: Businesses can create a detailed business page with information such as name, logo, category, description, hours of operation, website and additional contact phone number. These profiles are public, searchable through the app, and seamlessly integrated into all one-to-one conversations.
  • Product List: Businesses can display up to 50 products or services, which will include name, price, image and description. Products can be shared directly in chats and promoted through discounts. Customers can search for them and send inquiries about them by direct message to the business.

Increase sales through promotion and promotion

  • Recognizability: In a new feature, all Business Accounts are now tagged with a special tag in 1:1 chats, increasing visibility and awareness from their contacts and potential new clients. Business owners continue to appear in Viber search results based on their business name, description, location and category.
  • Profiles, QR codes & links: Each Business Account has a profile that can be shared via links and QR codes in various media such as social media, print or stores.

Seamless communication with customers through automation and analytics

  • New automated features: Businesses can now easily manage customer interactions using tools that automate responses. These tools can respond to out-of-hours messages, send out-of-office messages automatically, or welcome new customers with a personalized welcome message.
  • Enhanced chat functions: Businesses and customers now have access to all 1:1 chat functions, such as deleting messages/conversations, backing up, forwarding and editing, as well as replying to specific messages. The business name now also appears in the chat, so users know immediately that they are communicating with a business.
  • Business Insights: New data analysis features provide insights through metrics, such as reach, subscriber growth and average response time. This allows businesses to improve customer satisfaction and make data-driven decisions that will help them increase sales.

Ritesh Shah, FinTech General Manager and Business Solutions Vice President, Rakuten Viber

“Rakuten Viber continues to evolve and develop solutions for small businesses. Greece is a key market for us, and the great response we’ve seen here since we launched Business Accounts has prompted us to provide more digital tools to meet the needs of small businesses, through a user-friendly platform. Our goal is to add value to our product for customers and local communities and an important step towards this is expanding the capabilities of Business Accounts.”

Business Accounts are available for free to Viber users in Greece. packages with additional features and price ranges will be offered soon. Learn more here: https://lp.viber.com/smbgr